Post Teens at St. Stephen Church

As you may have noticed the bands I've chosen to put on this page from the Damaged City Fest are not your average hardcore bands.  With that sound and those stage antics Post Teens could pass for a garage rock band, and a good one too.  Hey Post Teens, please move to DC and be the new Points.

Posted: 4/20/2014 at 2:00pm     Tags: Damaged City Fest 2014  Post Teens  St. Stephen Church 

Draize at St. Stephen Church

For a minute there I thought a metal band had snuck onto the bill.  Sure, Draize are hardcore too.  It's more obvious on some songs than others.  But at times their guitars are so heavy, the screaming so guttural, that they sounded more like a doom metal band.  So there we go, some variety!  That plus a lead singer who can fly led to a mighty entertaining set.

Posted: 4/19/2014 at 9:00pm     Tags: Damaged City Fest 2014  Draize  St. Stephen Church 

Priests at St. Stephen Church

The Damaged City Fest in DC was chock full of straight hardcore bands, by which I mean regular bands not straightedge ones, thought there was at least one of those. Frankly most of them were indistinguisable to me. Priests, on the other hand, wear their progressive politics on their sleeves and that may have made them unique among the bands I saw that day.

That doesn't mean they weren't any mellow than the other bands. Quite to the contrary, their singer and guitarist both get pretty crazy on stage.  I'm not sure it's the kind of crazy which inspires moshing but they definitely put on a show.

Posted: 4/19/2014 at 5:00pm     Tags: Damaged City Fest 2014  Priests  St. Stephen Church 

Cosmonauts at Black Cat

Hmm, these guys seem to have mellowed out a bit since the last time I saw them. Their sound is a little more epic now, a little more like a normal rock band, honestly. But they have enough of an edge to keep things interesting. Once a Burger band, always a Burger band.

Posted: 4/14/2014 at 8:32am     Tags: Backstage  Black Cat  Cosmonauts 

The Pack A.D. at DC9

The Pack AD are two ladies from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada who have played drum-n-bass garage rock together for almost ten years.  Apparrently they kinda crossed over up there when a couple of singles off their last album slipped into the Top 50. It seems that sort of music still hits the charts in Canada. Yet more proof that Canada is simply better than the USA.

Anyway, I figure this makes them the Canadian equivalent of Kurt Vile except that The Pack AD are not boring. Far from it, the are total badasses live, though strangely enamoured of the 80s (rather than the 60s like most other garage rock bands). Consider this: They made a video which homaged Gary Neuman's video for the song "Cars". Personally I suggest you check out their video for Haunt You instead. It is quite awesome.

Posted: 4/6/2014 at 3:13pm     Tags: DC9  The Pack A.D.